CFP: Affect and Literature (3/31/04; collection)

In keeping with the long-standing relationship between psychoanalytic =discourses and literature, we are seeking submissions for a book =applying Silvan S. Tomkins' affect theory to literary texts. A basic =premise of this volume will be that human emotion is the foundation of =literature, and that literature and imaginative culture have done much =to enrich the emotional life of human beings. In literature, Tomkins =observes, language used "for the expression, clarification and deepening =of feelings" counters "the reduction in visibility of affects, effected =by language which embeds, distorts or is irrelevant to the affects and =which thereby impoverishes the affective life of man" (Affect 1: 219). =Tomkins himself was deeply interested in the relationship between =authors' lived experiences and their artistic output. He wrote =penetrating analyses, for example, of the affective dynamics in various =creative writers and thinkers, such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, =Marx, Freud, Wittgenstein, Hemingway, and Eugene O'Neill.

Essays should address authors and/or literary texts, and/or theoretical =issues pertaining to literary studies, in the light of Tomkins's =understanding of the dynamics of the nine affects, and/or scene and =script theory, and/or ideoaffective postures, and/or cognitive theory =(or what Tomkins called "human being theory"). Essays may make use as =well of developments and adaptations of Tomkins's work, such as Donald =Nathanson's conception of the compass of shame and of the cognitive =phases of shame. Essays should be limited to 10,000 words. Completed =essays or proposals should be sent to Joseph Adamson =(adamsonj_at_mcmaster.ca) and Duncan Lucas (lucasd_at_mcmaster.ca).